This is a blog about sexy witches of all varieties: elegant, attractive, pretty, cute, hot, naughty and femme fatales; real life witches; people dressed up as witches; witches in fiction, film and art: they will all be here in time, so stay tuned.

Ann Miller, Captivating Witch, 1949

The two pictures of Ann Miller in this post are from a series of four, listed (on the snipe) with the serial numbers “3359, 3360, 3361, 3362.” The first picture here is an original, the second is a reprint, and I am not sure what the appropriate serial numbers are for each of them. The snipe on my original photo reads:

The Atomic Age of Witchery … Ann Miller is the captivating Halloween Miss who has pumpkins and black cats for her mascots in this beauty study. The young dancing star, under long-term contract to Metro-Goldwyn–Mayer will soon be seen in the techicolor musical “On the Town,” in which she shares top billing with Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Betty Garrett, Jules Munshin and Vera-Ellen. The musical was directed by Kelly and Stanley Donen and produced by Arthur Freed.

If you look at the Wikipedia and Imdb entries for Ann Miller, you will find that she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and was inducted into the International Tap Dance Hall of Fame in 2004: that is, she was very talented.

Miller started young (at 14, pretending to be 18), could tap at an extraordinary speed (she was considered a child dance prodigy), wore costumes that emphasized her lithe figure and long dancer’s legs (her measurements were, apparently, 35-22-34), was a famous for her appearances on Broadway as in Hollywood films, and married three times (unhappily).

She said that she difficulty maintaining relationships with men due to her being an Egyptian queen in a past life (Queen Hathshepsut) and having been accustomed to executing any men who displeased her. This may have been wishful thinking, because she seems to have married arseholes.

One, a piece of scum who does not deserve to be memorialised with a name, beat Miller up when she was nine months pregnant, throwing her down a flight of stairs and breaking her back. Miller had to give birth with a broken back and auditioned for Easter Parade (1948) in a steel back brace!

This press photo dates from a few years later, October 1949 I think, when Miller was 26, though the film it mentions as have been directed (past tense) by Kelly and Stanley Donen, On the Town, did not have its premiere until 8 December 1949 in New York.

9 Responses to “Ann Miller, Captivating Witch, 1949”

Sound like a story from “Hollywood Babylon” by Kenneth Anger. In German, we call Mega Cities like L.A. “Hexenkessel” = “a witch’s cauldron”, a metaphor for chaos of sex & crime. Queen Hatshepsut was sort of a sexy Witch, there is a most naughty graffiti in a secret cave behind her temple, showing the wishful thinking (“Me & the Queen”) of a stonecutter. She knew what she wanted (it’s said that she had an affair with her minister Senenmut), but that she was a wicked man eater is a Hollywood myth. Ann Miller did choose the right past life, but for the wrong reason.

Hey Red, long time no see. Computer crashed, etc. Very dismayed to read of your troubles w/ the Internet. This is such an excellent site — so much time and effort and so fantastically informative — if they’re so *&^$#@! scared of sexy: why don’t they just read an ugly blog?